SOURCE: Research Climate Measure

The Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SOURCE) is the only validated instrument specifically designed to measure empirically the climate of research integrity in academic organizations. It collects confidential responses from participants; responses have been shown to correlate with self-reported behavior in the conduct of research, so the SOURCE provides a snapshot of program and unit microclimates through the aggregated perspectives of their members. Its use also contributes to the overall climate for research integrity by contributing de-identified data to a national comparison database. For an insight into how SOURCE results relate to institutional research integrity, please see this Nature article on the subject. For our newest white paper on developing academic leaders, see Academic Leadership Development, Critical Capabilities at the Department Level.

In addition to enabling confidential institution-specific reports on units and the campus as a whole, de-identified data will be compiled in a national comparison database so that the community as a whole may benefit. The norming initiative will permit home institution departments to be appropriately assessed with respect to other comparable units in the same discipline or endeavors.

How can you and your university run the SOURCE?

An organization that wishes to run the SOURCE makes arrangements to do so with the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE). The fee is based on the number of proposed organizational units and level of support desired in interpretation and analysis.

After contracting with NCPRE, an institution provides emails and names of participants with departmental affiliations and status (graduate student, post-doc, faculty member). NCPRE manages the survey administration. All message tone and content is set by institutional leaders.

The NCPRE SOURCE team sends emails via institutional email addresses seeking survey participation and follows up with reminders over a 4 week period. Response rates during pilot studies have ranged from 40-50%.

The NCPRE SOURCE team provides analyses used to generate the summary reports for the contracting institution. As part of building a national “norming” database for providing comparative data, NCPRE retains de-identified information with limited demographics for comparison and benchmark purposes.

More detailed information on the procedures involved in implementing SOURCE at your institution can be found on the Ethics CORE website.